In the race for California’s 28th District State Senate seat, Democrat Joy Silver received 35 percent of the vote in the June primary election, enough to advance to the November midterm elections, where she’ll face off against Sen. Jeff Stone, the Republican incumbent who received 56 percent of the vote.

The 28th State Senate District spans from Temecula and Murrieta in southwest Riverside County east to the Coachella Valley. And if Silver hopes to unseat Stone, she’ll have to make up ground in the district’s conservative strongholds in western Riverside County.

In Palm Springs, where Democrats outnumber Republicans almost three to one, Silver won 63 percent of the vote. In Temecula and Murrieta, where Republicans hold about a 25 percentage point registration advantage over Democrats, Silver received 28 and 25 percent of the vote respectively.

But more registered voters live in Temecula and Murrieta than any other city in the district, and the two cities account for a quarter of the district’s registered voters.

Silver said she knows a large bulk of the district’s voters live in southwestern Riverside County and, as the general election approaches, she’s reaching out and campaigning heavily in the western part of the district. On Monday evening in Riverside, the first-time candidate addressed Democrats from throughout the county at the Riverside Young Democrats Club meeting.

Republicans have held the 28th District State Senate seat since it was redrawn during 2011 redistricting. The last time the seat was up for election in 2014, Democrats were shut out as two Republicans – Stone and Bonnie Garcia – claimed the top two spots in the primary to advance to the general election. Philip Drucker, the race’s leading Democrat, only got 19 percent of the vote in the 2014 primary.

In the June primary, Stone received 12 percentage points more votes than the two Democratic candidates combined, but Republicans hold only a three-point registration advantage.

Silver has picked up high-profile endorsements, including from former U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, prominent labor and immigration activist Dolores Huerta, the Sierra Club and several of California’s powerful labor unions.

And beyond endorsements, she has raised more than $320,000, outpacing State Sen. Jeff Stone’s $240,000 in contributions.

Silver also lent her campaign $50,000. Campaign finance filings show that Planned Parenthood has spent $3,000 in independent expenditures on her behalf, phone banking and sending campaign mailers and voter guides.

Silver, who has spent her career working in the healthcare and affordable housing industries, has run a campaign focused on healthcare, housing, the environment and education. Talking to voters, she said, has made her confident her message can resonate among voters throughout the district, regardless of party.

“The Republican women I speak to are interested in the same things as the Democratic women and that’s equal pay for equal work; they want to know their children are going to have education and an environment they can live in,” she said.

Democrats have expanded their presence in the Temecula Valley and, in the aftermath of the 2016 election, founded the Temecula Valley Democratic Club, hoping to elevate progressive voices, promote Democratic candidates for office and give the party a visible presence where it has long been absent.

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Silver said the growth of party infrastructure and anti-Trump backlash will help the region’s Democrats in this year’s election.

“This is the first time Temecula has really had a Democratic Party at all and it’s really organized well. We’re seeing more registration toward Democrats,” she said.

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Progressive activists confronted Republican state Sen. Jeff Stone in Indio on April 6, 2017, over statements he'd made in opposition to making California a "sanctuary state."(Photo11: Jesse Marx/The Desert Sun)

Temecula Democrat Skylar Tempel, one of the club’s founders, was in the audience on Monday evening.

This election cycle, Democrats like Silver and 50th District Congressional candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar, he said, have focused on the Temecula Valley and its large base of votes more than Democrats in the past.

“One of my first pieces of advice (to Silver) was ‘Look, Jeff Stone is from Temecula. He has very good name recognition in the city from being on the City Council, being Mayor and then being on the county Board of Supervisors. That’s a base of voters you’re going to really have to crack into,’” he said.

When he was growing up in Temecula, Tempel said, Democrats in the city feared putting up political signs in their yards and making their opinions known to their neighbors. But now, things are beginning to change.

“There were a ton of Democrats that were in the closet, but now people are less afraid and coming out,” he said. “There’s been a cultural shift in the party over the last few years.’”

But whether the changes will be enough to win elections, Tempel is unsure.